REVIEW: Kellogg’s Jif Peanut Butter Cereal

Choosy moms who want what’s best for their children might choose Jif, but twenty-five year olds who buy their own damn cereal haven’t had a reason to choose Kellogg’s when it comes to getting their peanut butter fix.

So you might say it was about damn time for Kellogg’s to grow a pair and partner with Jif to create Jif Peanut Butter Cereal. Adorned in the familiar colors of everyone’s favorite minute West African country, Gambia, the red, green, and blue box becomes only the second name-brand peanut butter cereal on the market, joining Reese’s foray into cereal.

I give Jif Peanut Butter Cereal the full review treatment by conducting a comprehensive taste test with the “Big Three” of kid’s peanut butter cereals (sorry Cheerios and mothers, this ain’t a health food review). Sporting the name of a peanut butter company is all well and good, but if the cereal can’t match up to Reese’s Peanut Butter Puffs, Peanut Butter Toast Crunch, and Cap’n Crunch’s Peanut Butter Crunch, than the name Jif doesn’t mean a thing.

When I tasted the four cereals side by side, Jif stood out from the rest—but not in peanut buttery way. (I separated the peanut butter Reese’s puffs from the chocolate ones. As an aside, they’re not nearly as good as I thought they’d be all by themselves.) In fact, it had the least amount of pure peanut butter flavor while having the most distinctive corn aftertaste. It’s a distracting aftertaste at first, completely opposite that of the richer, rounder finish of Cap’n Crunch Peanut Butter Crunch or Peanut Butter Toast Crunch.

Slightly sweeter than both those cereals although noticeably less salty, the Jif cereal isn’t bad, but it’s not peanut butter. Notes of kettle corn and buttered popcorn jelly bean persist, as does a slight molasses and brown sugar depth. But the crunch is almost nonexistent when compared to the Cap’n Crunch Peanut Butter Crunch and Peanut Butter Toast Crunch, although the familiar monoglyceride coating native to most peanut butter cereals renders an enjoyable experience for licking messy fingers. Texturally a disappointment, it nevertheless grows on you when eaten dry. Still, it has very little peanut butter or even peanut flavor.

The story is a bit different in milk, but unsatisfyingly the same. The salty factor and the heavy corn aftertaste gets dulled, but the peanut butter flavor lacks impact. The crunch, as you might expect, only dissipates further, while the end milk doesn’t even begin to approach slurp worthy. All things considered, I could appreciate the unique (but not peanut butter) taste of the cereal dry, but in milk I found it unremarkable on every account.

There’s one final point to make. Jif Peanut Butter Cereal’s price tag compared to other peanut butter cereals gives me pause. A box weighs only a little over nine ounces, less than all the major competitors. While I realize sales and prices differ, I can reliably grab a 20-ounce box of a very peanut buttery Cap’n Crunch Peanut Butter Crunch from Walmart for the same price I paid for Jif cereal on sale.

If I was really in the mood for a bowl of kettle corn that would be an acceptable tradeoff—but I like kettle corn enough to actually, you know, buy kettle corn. Not distinctive enough to join the ranks of the best peanut butter cereals and not worth of its price tag in such a small box, both choosy moms and choosy twenty-five year old sugarholics will find it easy to agree to choose other cereals over Jif.

Item: Kellogg’s Jif Peanut Butter CerealPurchased Price: $2.99 (on sale)Size: 9.1 oz boxPurchased at: Weis MarketsRating: 5 out of 10Pros: Unique kettle corn flavor that breaks new ground in the world of cereal. Yummy when eaten dry in a salty-sweet-caramel kind of way. Learning about obscure country flags on Wikipedia. An excuse to open up three other kinds of better peanut butter cereals.Cons: No distinctive peanut butter flavor when eaten as a snack. Heavy whole grain corn aftertaste is distracting. Least crunchy of the major peanut butter cereal. Lackluster in milk. The economic implications of the shrinking cereal box.

I completely disagree with this. If I wanted a strong peanut butter taste, I’d stick my spoon in a tub of peanut butter. I think this has the perfect balance of peanut butter and that cereal grain taste. I will definitely be buying more boxes especially when I can buy 4 for $4 and get a free gallon of milk. It’s called coupons! Lol

You have really really overanalyzed this cereal. But then again you started this article without much hope for the cereal so how are you supposed to go in without your opinion already being made up? The Jif cereal, while expensive, is a great peanut butter cereal. I really enjoy it. The coating is very smooth and different from that of the Cap’n. If you put that same smooth coating on a piece of cap’n crunch instead it would not go well together because it’s so crunchy and the texture of the peanut butter is way too smooth for that. It requires a more delicate, less crunchy cereal piece. So the less crunchy and smaller pieces work well for the flavor and smoothness. You didn’t bother to take that into account of your analysis which you should have. Also, what I found when eating Jif cereal was that some of the pieces had less coating on them than others. So perhaps you just got a few pieces with less coating, which is why you thought it was more kettle corn tasting and less peanut butter tasting. I like the fact that some pieces are heavily coated while others are lightly coated because it keeps the taste from becoming monotonous. The peanut butter has an interesting flavor profile as well.

FYI, the vitamin and mineral fortifications alter the taste quite a bit. I combine this cereal with chocolate protein powder shake, for the most foolproof diet ever. Check out the nutrition facts… no iron overdose like many others, just perfect balance.

I can no longer buy Kellogg’s Jif Peanut Butter Cereal trust me I searched for at least two years and on line. Is there anywhere I can get it online or in Ca I’m craving it like crazy. Please help me. Thanks